We are pleased to announce that the jury for the 2012 OHO Award – consisting of Katerina Mirović (curator, Ljubljana), Jože Barši (ALUO, Ljubljana), Dalibor Martinis (artist, Zagreb), and Miran Mohar (artist, Ljubljana) – has at their first meeting chosen this year’s four nominees from the submitted proposals.

The nominees are Vesna Bukovec, Tomaž Furlan, Alja Piry, and Tina Smrekar.
Twenty-six submissions were received for this year’s contest.

Now in its seventh year, the OHO Award is presented by the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute in collaboration with the Foundation for Civil Society and Trust for Mutual Understanding, both based in New York.

The nominees have until the last week in April to prepare a new work or present a work that has not yet been exhibited. The works will be presented at the Vžigalica Gallery.

The programme of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport and by the Municipality of Ljubljana, Department of Culture. The OHO Award is sponsored by the KD Group d.d.

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Nominees for the 2012 OHO Award

Vesna Bukovec (1977) graduated and completed her post-graduate studies in Sculpture at
the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. She works as a solo artist as well as in the art group KOLEKTIVA (with Metka Zupanič and Lada Cerar). In recent years she has presented her works at numerous solo and group exhibitions in Ljubljana, Maribor, Slovenj Gradec, Novo Mesto, Ribnica, Zagreb, Belgrade, Athens, Berlin, Beijing, Graz, Vienna, New York, Verona, Venice… Her artistic work finds its expression in a variety of media (drawing, video, photography, installation) and approaches (research, appropriation, participation, etc.), with irony being a frequently used artistic strategy.

Tomaž Furlan
Born 1978 in Kranj, Slovenia.
Education: Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana.
His late work is a video shoving the use of his devices, dresses or body accessories made for certain purpose. The doings documented in video have no sense; you could say they are stupid, even imbecile. Yet through their stupid – imbecile character they are supposed to display a certain anarchic charge.
He lives in Ljubljana and work in his studio on Metelkova Mesto. In 2012 he will participate at Manifesta9, in Genk, Belgium.

Alja Piry (1982) gained BA in Art history studies from Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana in 2007 and in 2010 a MA in Fine arts from University of applied Arts Vienna. From 2010 she is self employed as artist/cultural worker. Alja Piry is concerned with the idea of artworks as generators of intersubjective impulse. In her practice she uses various mediums, including drawing/text, voice-based installation, painting, video and book.

Tina Smrekar (1978) lives and works in Ljubljana. Tina Smrekar has completed her Photography MA in 2005 at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig after graduating in design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. She works in photography, video, installation and
research projects as well as occasionally performance. Her works have been exhibited in Slovenia, Croatia, Germany and elsewhere. She is a recipient of several grants, among them DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), KulturKontakt Austria, Museumsquartier Wien and Bauhaus Dessau.